Technical debt
Also said as Tech debt
The future cost of a quick fix or a messy shortcut in the code. Like a loan, it buys you speed now and charges interest on all later work until it is paid. Ward Cunningham coined the comparison in 1992.
A little debt on purpose is a good deal when you need to get something out. But ignored debt slows every later feature, until the team spends its time working around its own past.
Say it
“We can hard-code the three enemy types to make the demo, but put the debt on the list. Spend one day in five after the demo pulling that into a proper data table.”
Where you’ve seen it
Bethesda's engine has long tied parts of the game's speed to the frame rate. In Fallout 76 in 2018, players found that they moved faster when looking at the ground, where frames came quicker, and Bethesda had to patch it.
Not to be confused with bug
A bug is something wrong that a player can see. Technical debt can work perfectly and still make the next change take twice as long.